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| Joined: | Thu Jun 9th, 2011 |
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One thing I did in my alternate history (basically, no Chancellorsville Miracle by Lee, Union wins 18 months early, much more lenience by the North and integration of baseball from the beginning bring the races together faster) was cover the lives of ordinary people and have them intertwine with leaders like LIncoln, Douglass, Octavius Catto (a great unknown who died in his early 30s) and others, a la The Winds of War.
So, why couldn't Holly wood do a Winds of War type of movie? True, TWoW worked best as a miniseries, but I think by doing a biography not of a famous person, but of an ordinary individual, they could do it - as long as they didn't try to do too much. (TWoW covered a number of families and generations, IIRC)
For instance, take a small-time backwoods farmer who doesn't own slaves from Georgia. He thinks he's fighting for freedom for his country, but as the story goes on, he begins to see the problems of slavery - maybe Cleburne Fan's idea can be incorporated as part of that. So can his state's own Governor Brown, who threatened his *own* secession from the CSA. (Governor Brown would make an interesting historical figure to cover in his own right, perhaps?) goes through a character change with only minimal battles shown, if any. In the end, then, our main character realizes how awful slavery was and thinks Davis was a tyrant (like Brown thought by the end), and admits, basically, "We deserved to get whupped." Or words to that effect.
Of coruse, it's hard to do character analysis on film, I'll admit, since you generally don't see thoughts. (THough you could have them verbalized in letters home or something?) But, I think a character growth story would be possible.
Last edited on Thu Jun 9th, 2011 08:39 pm by BrotherhoodandBaseball